Devil in a Kilt by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

Chapter 11

Abloodcurdling scream rent the night’s quiet, instantly banishing the sweet oblivion of Duncan MacKenzie’s deep slumber. With a curse, he sprang from the bed, his hands reaching for his sword.

Sweet Mother of God, they were under attack!

“Man the walls!” he roared. “We’re under siege!”

Frantically, he searched for his arms. Nothing was where it should be. Thunder of heaven, where was his blade? In his haste, his bare foot collided with a misplaced chest, shooting a red-hot arrow of pain up his leg.

“Lucifer’s knees! Who rearranged my chamber?” Scowling, he limped toward his sword. It was propped against a wall near the door, with his dagger and belt on the floor nearby.

As if they’d been carelessly flung there.

Puzzlement drew his brows together. Ne’er would he have cast aside his arms so clumsily. It was his way to lay his weapons atop his carefully folded plaid each night.

Within easy reach – a truth that only made his confusion grow.

Where was his plaid?

Something foul was afoot and if the castle women would cease shrieking and his head didn’t ache as if it’d been cleaved in two, perhaps he’d get to the bottom of the matter.

But first he had to see to the safety of his clan.

Unclothed, if need be.

Fastening his belt around his bare hips, Duncan thrust his dagger beneath the wide leather band, then made ready to dash from the room, anxious to join the fray.

But the door wouldn’t open – proving locked from the outside!

Unease seized him at the same moment a shrill cry sounded behind him. He hadn’t heard the castle women screaming. The cries came from within the room. Brandishing his sword, he whirled around only to freeze.

A banshee stood before the hearth!

Her flame-colored hair wild about her shoulders, blood dribbling down her chin, her vacant eyes staring at him from a face pale as a week-old corpse, the bean shith’s wail turned his very bones to water.

And, saints preserve him, she wore his plaid.

“Dinnae come closer!” the banshee cried.

As if she feared him, she threw up her arms in a defensive gesture, letting loose of the plaid as she did so. It fell to the floor, pooling around her ankles.

Realization hit him with the force of a wind straight from hell, stealing his breath. His pulse raced, and his jaw dropped.

Eilean Creag wasn’t under attack, nor had a bean shith penetrated its thick walls.

The banshee was his wife!

And she stood before him in her chamber, not his.

“By the hounds, what goes on here?” Duncan thundered, his heart hammering. “Sakes alive, woman, you’ve blood running down your chin!”

Visibly shaken, his bride lifted a hand to her lips. Her trembling fingers came away smeared with red. “I did not intend to disturb your sleep, my lord,” she said, examining her bloodied fingertips rather than look at him. “I am not often visited by such alarming manifestations.”

“The blood…” Duncan let his question hang in the chill air between them. For the love of St. Mungo, he still felt as if he teetered on the threshold to hell’s antechamber.

“I bit my lip, sir. That is all. You’ve no need to fetch the leech.”

Duncan’s alarm eased upon the realization she’d been in the throes of a vision. But blessed knowledge didn’t slow the blood racing through his veins. He blew out a ragged breath. Every muscle in his body screamed with tension.

Including ones he hadn’t known he possessed.

Needing to do something – anything – he set his weapons aside and strode to the bed. He ripped a strip of cloth from the bedcurtains, closing his fingers around the makeshift bandage with the same fierceness a certain question squeezed his innards.

“Did you see what I must know?” He drew a deep breath. “Is the boy mine?”

Silence answered him.

Duncan fought his annoyance, the dread churning in his gut. Was he ne’er to be granted relief from his doubts? Not even now after binding himself to a lass whose abilities were sung throughout the Highlands?

A lass who, though gifted with the sight, seemed to have lost her tongue. Duncan’s ire grew. A speech-deprived seeress served him naught.

He closed his eyes, tension knotting his jaw. “I asked you a question.”

“I cannot tell you if Robbie is yours,” came her reply at last. “The vision had nothing to do with what you want to know.”

Wantto know? Duncan glanced heavenward and swallowed an oath that would’ve curled the devil’s own tail.

Did she not realize he needed to know?

His impatience got the better of him, and he spun around, the strip of cloth dangling from the fingers of his outstretched hand. “For your chin,” he said, but the sharp-toned words died on his tongue as a very different type of need assailed him.

Thunder of God, was he growing as blind as a cloudy-eyed graybeard? How had he missed noticing that the maid stood before him wearing naught but a blush?

A sweet rosy flush that deepened as she snatched the cloth from his fingers and pressed it against her lower lip. “Thank you,” she said, but Duncan scarce noticed. Blood surged to his loins, intense desire, hard and swift, causing his too-long-neglected arousal to lengthen and swell.

He let his gaze roam over her, drinking in the sight of her freely displayed bounty, inch by intoxicating inch. Doing so was torture in its most exquisite form, but so pleasurable, he couldn’t deny himself.

The soft glow of the dying embers in the hearth illuminated her unclothed body in all its naked glory, taunting him with the fullness of her breasts and the gentle curve of her hip, while her maiden curls beckoned to him from betwixt her thighs.

Curls the same color and every bit as alluring as the luxuriant red-gold tresses cascading to well below her waist.

A man less skilled in the arts of love would’ve spilled his seed just looking upon her.

His shaft now full and aching, Duncan nearly joined the ranks of such depraved and ignoble souls when he glanced at her face and caught her peering intently at his swollen sex. His maleness bucked under her innocent perusal, filling and lengthening even more beneath her gaze.

Saints, but she fired his blood!

“I thought you had no desire to bed me, my lord?”

The confusion in her voice banished the haze of his desire, deflating his passion and stealing the rampant lust she’d stirred in him. Never had it been his intent to confuse or hurt her, yet he’d behaved like a stag in rut and done just what he’d vowed he wouldn’t.

“You have seen I desire you,” he replied, unable to keep the thickness from his voice. “But nothing has changed. It would not be wise and was never my intent to take my ease with you.”

“I see,” she said in the same tone of voice she’d used in his solar when they’d first discussed what was to be expected of her.

Duncan scowled at the memory of that ill-fated meeting.

He did not want to desire her. Ne’er had he expected her to stoke flames he’d thought were long extinguished, flames powerful enough to do more damage than merely supply his neglected manhood with its ease.

The most lackluster-brained dolt would see the danger of slaking one’s lust upon his lady’s bountiful offerings. A man who dared would lose more than his seed on her – he’d lose his soul.

And Duncan didn’t have one to give.

A pestilence on his men for convincing him to fetch her. He’d wanted an ill-favored bride, not one whose charms would tempt a monk.

With an oath, he raked both hands through his hair. Using one hand to shield his arousal as best he could, he snatched his plaid off the floor with the other, then tossed it to her.

“Cover yourself,” he ordered, his tone harsher than he’d intended. His back to her, he added, “It is not wise for me to look upon you.”

“I have seen your nakedness, my lord.”

“Aye, so you have, and that is part of the problem,” he ground out, his damned tarse twitching anew. “I should no’ have been so careless.”

“I did not mind.”

By all the gods!he almost roared. Instead, he waited until the soft rustling of wool stopped before he spoke again. “Are you covered?”

“Aye.”

He wheeled back to face her, but focused his gaze on the wall, just to the left of her head. “Return to your bed, I shall not disturb you. The chair will serve me well for the remainder of the night.”

For once she didn’t argue, but flew across the room, his plaid clutched tightly to her breast. The stricken look on her face twisted the knife in his gut, making him despise himself for the heartless bastard he’d become.

But if he’d had to gaze upon her another moment, he’d have lost control and tossed her upon the rushes, not even bothering to carry her the few steps to the bed.

Splendor of heaven, she’d looked like a mythical water nymph risen from the depths of the loch, all wild and lush and tempting.

Too tempting.

Duncan waited until all grew still beneath the bedcovers, then lowered himself into the high-backed chair beside the hearth, stretching his legs out before him.

The dwindling fire left not a pretense of warmth but he was too drained to start another.

Nor did he relish passing the long hours till morn sitting naked, cold, and uncomfortable, in his wife’s bedchamber.

He scarce recalled his men half-carrying, half-dragging him up the stairs, then stripping him of his clothes and tossing him upon her bed. He’d think of the matter of their boldness later – when his head hurt less.

Scowling, he looked about for something with which to cover himself. Anything capable of providing even a semblance of warmth.

But the room was scant furnished and held none of the elaborate trappings his first wife had kept about her chamber.

Nothing but his new wife’s worn leather herb satchel caught his eye. It rested on the floor, close to his chair. He regarded the pouch with bitter irony.

How fitting for him to contemplate using the soft leather satchel to warm himself when his bride slept, chaste and alone, not four paces away.

She might as well be four leagues away for all the comfort she spent him.

With a muttered oath, he snatched up the pouch and settled it across his loins. The butter-soft leather would keep his tender parts warm if nothing else.

Not that he need worry about keeping himself warm.

Truth be told, he could share his bed with ten wenches, pile sheepskins high atop the lot of them, and still freeze.

Inside.

Aye, the room’s chill mattered little.

It was a small discomfort compared to the cold he carried within.